Underemployment: A Middle-Aged Perspective

Adulthood isn’t turning out like you thought it would. If you earned a degree in the humanities (e.g., English, history, philosophy) and find yourself manning the reception desk, ringing up customer purchases at a department store, or asking customers if they want fries with that, then buckle up kiddos, you’ve got a bumpy ride ahead of you.

If you haven’t figured it out already, corporate America holds only two things in greater contempt than a degree in the humanities: a fine arts degree and no degree at all. Although corporate America gives lip service to the notion they want employees who can read, write, and analyze, what it really wants is someone who can count, has an MBA, 20 years of experience, and will work for minimum wage. At this point, you realize you should have spent your college years apprenticed to a master plumber or automotive mechanic. Hey, there’s good money to be made in the skilled trades.

So, now you’re sure you’re doomed to perpetual underemployment. Fear not, because you have options. They’re not necessarily great options; but hey, whatever pays the bills and pays off that mortgage you call a student loan, right?

“If you freelance and you want to earn a living wage from your projects, you’ll find yourself declining work that pays slave wages.”

How do I know this? I graduated with a bright, shiny, new degree in English during the recession of the late 1980s. For the next 25 years I slogged at jobs that held professional sounding titles, but were essentially clerical in nature. Finally, near the end of 2015, I found myself unemployed and wondering just what the hell I was going to do next. I absolutely did not want to go back to anything remotely clerical. Truthfully, I didn’t want to go back to a corporate environment at all.

I didn’t get my English degree so I could work as a secretary. I didn’t sweat blood, developing and honing skills in writing, research, data analysis, and graphic design to be treated like an incompetent idiot. For the second time in my life I embarked upon an extensive and intensive job search. It lasted six months.

During that six months, I managed to snag some interviews and somewhere along the way, rediscovered my self-respect. I once again found ambition and self-confidence that years of micromanaging, unappreciative, and abusive bosses had managed to grind into dust. That led to my new career.

I decided to freelance.

If you choose to freelance, know this: it ain’t all roses, unicorns, and rainbows. You’ll need to build a portfolio of work before heading this route. Potential clients want to see references and recommendations. They want evidence you have experience. Yes, I know it’s a conundrum: how do you get experience if no one will hire you to build that experience? If you haven’t learned the term pro bono, then break out your dictionary. Google is your friend.

I landed my first paid gig three months after losing my job. I landed it because I mistyped my bid, and left off a zero. However, the client was happy and left a positive review. Then work began to trickle in.

It’s been almost a year since I lost my (miserable) job, and I’ve learned a lot that I want to pass on if you think freelancing is a good career option. Freelance platforms like Fiverr, Texbroker, and Upwork cater to unreasonable customers who want the cheapest rates. I’ve learned how to gauge how much time it will take me to produce 1,000 words of good content—and then set my rates accordingly. Few freelance platform customers are willing to pay that rate. I can’t compete with hungry vendors from Pakistan who will work for $0.23 per hour.

Another thing I’ve learned; everyone wants to have written a book, but far fewer people actually want to write one. Expectations for ghostwriters conform to the above unreasonable standards: error-free, original content, produced practically overnight for less than $1.00 per hour.

Here’s a true story. I bid on a ghostwriting project to write the prospective client’s biography. His budget was $600. I informed him what I would provide for that sum. He interviewed me and hired someone else with a less expensive rate. A month later he contacted me. That el-cheapo contractor had taken his 50 percent deposit and disappeared. So the client asked me to produce a book at twice the length originally proposed for half the original budget.

I politely declined. If you freelance and you want to earn a living wage from your projects, you’ll find yourself declining work that pays slave wages. But, you’ll also keep your self-respect.

What about writing a novel, publishing it, and getting rich off the royalties?

Excuse me while I laugh.

Independent publication is a huge business collectively, and a miniscule business individually. As an independently published author, you’re responsible for the quality of the content you produce. That means you hire—and pay for—the editor to whip your draft into shape. You hire—and pay for—the marketing to sell your book.

If that weren’t bad enough, competition is fierce.

In 2014, TechCrunch calculated that there’s a new book published on Amazon every five minutes. That number’s grown since then. Outthink Group crunched a few more numbers and stated that an independently published book has a less than 1 percent chance of being carried in bookstores. Anecdotal evidence states that over 90 percent of independent authors earn less than $1,000.00 annually in royalties.

My first year as an independent author, with one book released to the public on multiple platforms, netted me about $45.00. Woo. Hoo.

My second year as an independent author, with five books released on multiple platforms, yielded about $150.00 in annual royalties. My per-book earnings certainly didn’t keep pace.

This is my third year as an independently published author. I have 10 books available. They are only available through Amazon. The only royalties I ever received the first two years came through Amazon—nothing through Nook, iBooks, Kobo, etc. I’ve finally broken that $1,000.00 barrier, but royalties haven’t been enough to cover weekly groceries for the family.

Buckle up, kiddos. If you’ve chosen an unappreciated field that leads to an undervalued profession, you’re going to spend a good portion your life underemployed. Adulthood’s a rough ride.

Karen Smith works as a freelance writer and editor on her southwest Ohio hobby farm, where she lives with her husband, two children, and a menagerie. A published author, she writes romance and fantasy and has published 10 books.